Fourth Estate or Fifth Column

[The Wizard]

We report -- You decide
Today's Star-Ledger bemoans New Jersey's stalled population growth as if we need more people in the nation's most densely populated state.
We have traffic jams, long lines everywhere, congested super market aisles, overcrowding everywhere, shrinking farm land, open spaces consumed by real estate speculators, and the Star-Ledger wants the state to do more to encourage the usurpation of natural resources.
If the Ledger is so bent on putting profits over people and living standards, then they are sure to endorse anything Republican. They have been suspiciously bereft of any coverage regarding Chris Christie's jihad against Democrats, failing to notice that he was on the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired until he issued subpoenas to Senator Menendez just prior to the last election.
They have taken the Republican position that all Democratic politicians must make everything in their lives accessible like communications with those with whom they've been intimate.
It appears as though the Ledger is trying to attract fringe Republicans, as if there's any Republicans who aren't on the fringe.
They are making the same mistake CNN made when it lurched to the right. Now CNN, in it's attempt to get back some of the viewers who went over to Pox (deliberate typo), has lost moderate viewers.
What the Ledger's management fails to understand is the wingers they're hoping to attract don't read. That's why they prefer Ruppert Murdoch's form of yellow journalism with lots of pictures and misleading headlines. They seem to be leaning towards becoming a fifth column rather than being part of the Fourth Estate.
At least they publish letters to the editor critical of the Ledger's downfall to the right like the following:
Your editorial criticizing Republican front runners for not appearing at a debate at Morgan State presents a false comparison. If the candidates said they had scheduling conflicts, so be it. They know getting votes from Morgan State is marginal at best, and they'd be better off spending time and energy in venues where there's a chance of getting votes in the primary. How many in the Morgan State community will be voting in the Republican primary? Maybe they didn't want to alienate the base.
In your efforts to be "fair and balanced" you criticize Democrats for refusing to debate on Fox News as if Fox News was a legitimate news source. If the Ledger's editorial writers don't understand what Fox News is all about regarding their unvarnished support for all things Republican, they might try finding employment in another field. To compare a small college with a multi billion dollar political advertising outlet disguised as news is the same kind of flawed logic that got us in a no win quagmire in Iraq because the 9-11 attacks were carried out and financed by Saudi nationals.
Wake up Star-Ledger. The only reason Republicans are competing for votes is that they've perfected a way to exploit the great dumbing down, and that means attracting those who either can't or don't read.